2016 Brings About Layoffs to a Variety of Industries

2016 Brings About Layoffs to a Variety of Industries

by Amy Lignor

From tobacco to alcohol, with brand names that have incurred huge amounts of cash during their long-term years in business, layoffs have still been announced at a rapid pace in 2016. Even from those companies that have increased their profits.

Altria is one with a very large brand name. Its cornerstone brand, Marlboro, has brought about retail sales that have grown higher for the fourth year in a row. Yet this company plans layoffs in order to lower their costs. This tobacco company, rated number two in revenue behind Philip Morris, said that even though their earnings rose in Q4, it rose one cent less than the analyst consensus, which means it was the first time in six quarters when Altria failed to meet or beat estimates.

Eliminating jobs in order to cut up to $300 million in annual costs (according to TheWall Street Journal), the heads of the company actually declined to say just how many hard workers would be out on the street.

Oddly enough, even with all this bad news, others in the market have foreseen a robust renewal of the industry, calling it the “Golden Age” for manufacturers considering global expansion and the rollout of new products, such as electronic cigarettes.

When it comes to the alcohol industry, Anheuser Busch has stated that they will cut approximately 3% of its combined workforce after the acquisition of their rival, SABMiller, has come to a close. This layoff and acquisition will have AB apparently hitting its goal to achieve pre-tax savings of $1.4 billion per year within four years after the takeover, by increasing efficiency, sharing best practices and removing overlaps that occur in both corporate and regional headquarters.

The tobacco and alcohol industry now join news with others in 2016 that have had to bring about layoffs. Cisco announced various layoffs this year and will bring about even more in industries ranging from oil-and-gas to brick-and-mortar retail stores to technology.

Since the oil bust actually began, 195,000 job cuts have been made in the U.S. alone (Challenger, Gray & Christmas). Of those, approximately 95,000 occurred just in 2016, particularly seen in the state of Texas. There were even more layoffs made in just the month of July.

The technology industry is truly getting walloped by the almost complete switch to mobile technology, sending the PC area into a massive downward spiral. Add into all this the retail area of the market, and you see Macy’s announcing nearly 44,000 cuts as they close up at least one hundred of their retail stores.

Will all of these job cuts occur in 2016? Most likely not, these takeovers and buyouts certainly take time, yet they will happen. From back-office employees to customer service reps, jobs will disappear. And those executives who don’t get laid off will receive buyout packages instead. But with retail sales dropping like a stone also because of online retailers that people now choose to use, Macy’s, among others, may just become extinct.

Hancock Fabrics, which first filed for bankruptcy reorganization in 2007 to then re-emerge in 2008, re-filed this year. Now liquidating its 250 stores, the name Hancock Fabrics will actually be erased.

Will Microsoft disappear? Of course not, but having failed at its entry into the mobile field, the company has been working hard to restructure. Layoffs have been many over the past two years and hasn’t ceased in 2016.

A merger between DuPont and Dow Chemical brings about some issues as well, with DuPont striving to cut annual costs by cutting thousands of employees.

Bank of America has witnessed many job cuts. When it comes to employees in its consumer division that were once cut to 68,400, the company stated two months ago that it will continue to drop that number to the low 60’s by year end.

Halliburton’s oil and gas employees numbered 80,000 at one time and fell down to 65,000. This year the cuts will bring the headcount down another 15,000 employees before all is said and done.

Wal-Mart Stores have over two million employees, so the company’s 17,500 job cut figure perhaps doesn’t seem like much. But the doors will close on 260 stores (154 in the US) during the year 2016, showing that, once again, those brick-and-mortar sores that were so populated at one time are most definitely losing to the online world.

Alcohol, tobacco, oil and gas, retail, technology – you name it, the layoffs have continued to rear their ugly heads in 2016. It will be interesting to see exactly what companies “break” into the online success, including what new applications will be placed on these cell phones that no one can seem to put down. And will the new President coming in make 2017 even worse? Who knows? But when it comes to the minds behind Pokémon Go one thing is definitely for sure: they should have no worries at all.

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